SHAFAQNA -Â Head of Iraqi Scholars Association on Tuesday sharply criticized Sunni clerics of Iraq for their silence over the heinous crimes committed by the Takfiri (extremist) terrorists.Â

Sheikh Khalid Al Mulla rapped the silence of senior Sunni clerics in Iraq over the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) terrorist group’s atrocities, saying that they are ashamed of issuing fatwas (religious edicts) against the group.Â

Al Mulla said that even many of the state-sponsors of terrorism have started to fight the terrorist group after seeing ISILâ€™s criminal policies and bloodshed.Â

The silence of Sunni clerics and their refusal to issue Fatwas against the ISIL terrorists cannot be justified and ignored, he stressed.Â

He also announced certain changes in the leadership of the association in a bid to create new mechanisms for combatting ISIL and declaring the militants as criminals in fatwas.Â

Iraq has been facing the growing threat of terrorism, mainly posed by the ISIL terrorist group.Â

The ISIL militants made swift advances in much of northern and western Iraq last summer, after capturing large swaths of northern Syria.Â

However, a combination of concentrated attacks by the Iraqi military and the volunteer forces, who rushed to take arms after top Iraqi cleric Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani issued a fatwa calling for fight against the militants, have blunted the edge of the ISIL offensive.